Chapter Thirteen: Pie Planning

I've had a huge pie block. Like writers block, but with pie.

I had a crisis mid March, that derailed me around  Pi Day, then the next week I had an event that consumed my time but also my headspace, then I got sick. Ive been reeling from a sinus thing for a week when my tough-love husband told me (twice) to get off my butt and do this or call it a failure. I'm not giving up and I'm not giving excuses.


I did make a pie last week. I just didn't blog it. Lemon Meringue was a success, although I thought it was a touch too sweet. Maybe I'm getting sweeted out.

And then I'm faced with this week. I manage to partially draft a good number of my blogs so that I have an easier time  with the baking and posting. When I looked up today's date on the blog, the proposed chapter was on planning. It's like I know my mind.

I had pinned this website to show a pie chart on what pies to eat when during the year. This is a welcome aid to me this week because I hadn't decided on a pie and April's pie challenges me. I don't love chess pie, but it's the featured pie for April. So chess pie it is.

Life is making it harder to pursue this project. I'm struggling to keep everything balanced in my life, and for some reason, it feels insurmountable at the moment. I know I'll get past it, but forgive me if posts come a little later and the words don't flow as easily. It's just pie block and it will pass.

Chocolate Chess Pie
1 partially baked pie crust (I'm still using the same recipe. It's still yummy and I haven't gotten sick of it.)
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon flour

Preheat oven 350º.
Sift together the sugar and the cocoa powder (in this case, just stir it well together until the sugar looks brown and most of the cocoa lumps are gone.) Stir in the butter until well combined. Mix in the eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour until just combined and pour into pie shell.
Bake at 350º for 35 minutes. The center should be set and the top hardened. (I say "set," but because the top is a hard crust, you wont really know what the center looks like. Best of luck there.)

What I learned from this pie: It's too sweet and grainy for my taste. Next week we're definately going to do a savory pie. However, I was interested to discover that the hardened top seems to be basically a meringue that separates from the filling. Interesting.